HoYoverse’s next gacha game has shades of Teamfight Tactics and Pokémon. The developer describes Honkai: Nexus Anima as a “creature-collector adventure strategy game.” HoYoverse first teased the title in May at the Honkai: Star Rail Concert 2025.
In Honkai: Nexus Anima‘s game world, a sudden rupture has shattered the balance between opposing forces (Nexus). You’ll explore the realm, forging bonds with the resulting creatures (Anima) scattered about. It sounds like gameplay will revolve around auto-chess, pet-training mini-games and world hub exploration.
Honkai: Nexus Anima is still in development, so a release date hasn’t yet been announced. But HoYoverse will soon conduct a closed beta (the Nexus Bond Test) on Windows and iOS. You can visit the registration page until September 12 if you want to give it a shot.
If you play games from Hoyoverse, you’re probably waiting for Zenless Zone Zero’s long-awaited release. As an Honkai: Star Rail player, the trailer had me sold when I heard mentions of Belobog. It’s not a city trapped in eternal winter but a character and construction company in the new game.
Hoyoverse, the company responsible for the hit gacha game Genshin Impact, announced Zenless Zone Zero in May 2022. Like most games from the company, their newest rogue-like RPG is set in the futuristic, post-apocalyptic city of New Eridu.
Despite its technological advancements, New Eridu is the last bastion of humanity. In Zenless Zone Zero, the Hollows are disastrous dimensions that could unleash monsters known as Ethereals. If you play Honkai: Star Rail, they’ll remind you of the fragmentum monsters. If Genshin Impact is your game, the Ethereals will remind you of the abyss and its creatures. There must be a connection among these eerily similar monsters, but that’s all just speculation for now.
Your job as a Proxy in Zenless Zone Zero is to guide people who venture into the Hollows for treasure and loot.
The trailer was released at the Game Awards 2023 amidst endless advertisements and promos. In November 2023, the game went through its second closed-beta test. Many streamers who had the opportunity to play the game praised it for its interesting story, but it can be a grind. That shouldn’t deter many people who already play games created by Hoyoverse, but it might not be ideal for those who can’t afford another game commitment.
It’s expected that Zenless Zone Zero will be published in 2024, but we’re still waiting for Hoyoverse to confirm an official release date.
First, there was Genshin Impact, which was great, but eventually expanded so much that it felt truly unwieldy. Then, there was Honkai: Star Rail, which was also fine, but coupled with an uninspired story and your typical anime fantasy aesthetic, it quickly lost my attention less than a month after its release.
The good news is that Hoyoverse has clearly amassed insane amounts of money from how well both these games have performed that they’re seemingly able to just create whatever they want now, and the results are tremendous.
Enter Zenless Zone Zero, Hoyoverse’s latest game, and this finally feels like the one I can truly, properly get into.
If the flashy trailers with neon lights and the urban fantasy-punk aesthetic weren’t enough to win you over already, you’ll be glad to know that the actual game is every bit as cool as it looks. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with the second closed beta test this past weekend, and I found myself surprised by how small it was. Granted, I did go in with some preconceived notions based on what I knew of Genshin Impact and Star Rail, but consider me pleasantly surprised by the results.
More than anything else, Zenless Zone Zero is a dungeon crawler action RPG, where the core gameplay loop revolves around you exploring the 6th Street of New Eridu to talk to NPCs and interacting with a computer to jump into the virtual world to take on Commissions. All main and side quests revolve around Commissions, which are levels that you explore for currency, key items, and engage in combat.
Image Source: Hoyoverse via Twinfinite
It’s going to sound a little wacky, but stay with me here. Whenever you start a Commission, you’re transported into a virtual world made up of analogue TV screens. The screens themselves are tiles you can step on, and there are special tiles that can trigger various effects. There are healing tiles, combat tiles, and treasure tiles.
Before too long, though, the game starts throwing fun curve balls at you. You start getting puzzle tiles, where you must move objects over certain tiles to unlock a new route. You also start coming across Fissures, which are basically teleportation tiles that take you to a whole other location with more tiles to check out.
Not everything is based around combat either, as there are some Commissions with levels that are just all puzzles. One early side quest had me jump into the virtual world only to be confronted with a memory test where I had to count the number of colored screens in a few seconds and answer a few questions correctly. Another quest tasked me with hitting switches in order to slow down a virtual train so I could hijack it, and said train was beautifully depicted with greyscale tracks and railcars on analogue screens, making this one of the most visually striking games I’ve played in a while.
Image Source: Hoyoverse via Twinfinite
The point is, Zenless Zone Zero’s virtual world contains some of the most innovative stuff I’ve ever seen in a Hoyoverse game, and that is genuinely exciting.
It certainly helps that the combat is so fun as well. Like Genshin Impact, this is an action RPG that allows you to switch between multiple characters on the fly. You get a maximum of three characters in your party, and each time you hit the dodge button, you automatically switch out to the next character in line. This might sound annoying on paper, but it actually works quite well in practice thanks to how seamless the transitions feel.
There are also regular and special attacks, which you can chain together to daze an enemy. Once an enemy is dazed, time slows down, allowing you to switch to another character to pull off a powerful combo attack. Finally, there’s your ultimate attack, which does exactly what it says on the box: it deals a crap ton of damage to your surrounding foes most of the time.
Combat feels good, but most importantly, it also looks good. The animations in Zenless Zone Zero are honestly on a whole other level when you compare it to its predecessors. Your characters are always posing in that cool anime aesthetic way no matter what you do, and the game just gives you an incredible sense of satisfaction like no other when you clear a combat encounter. Time stops, the word “SLASHED” just flashes across your screen in giant letters and beautiful neon colors as the camera pans around your character in a cool pose.
Image Source: Hoyoverse via Twinfinite
Aesthetically, Hoyoverse really knocked it out of the park. The menus are slick and easy to navigate, even the gacha animations (more on that later) look nice. NPCs all come with unique animations when you ask them for something, whether it’s getting a robot aptly named Tin Master to whip up a cup of coffee for you, or watching the newsstand dog scratch its ears adorably while you read the day’s headlines.
Included in this closed beta test is the gacha system itself. If you’re familiar with these sorts of games, you probably already know what to expect. You’ll accrue currency slowly as you play the game, and these can be used to pull on a gacha banner for a chance to get an S-tier character. You’ll get an A-tier character with every 10-pulls, along with Cores, which are basically equipment items.
The good news is that Zenless Zone Zero makes it pretty clear how the pity system works. You’ll hit pity on the special event banner with 90 pulls, which means you’re guaranteed to get an S-tier character on that 90th pull. However, it’s only a 50% chance of getting the featured banner character. The next time you hit pity on that banner, you’re guaranteed to get the featured character, so it’s still a bit of a toss-up for that first pity counter.
Similar to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, there are three types of gacha currencies: Master Tape, Encrypted Master Type, and Film Tape. Regular Master Tape is used for the game’s regular banners, while the Encrypted version is used for special event banners. Film Tape can be collected and converted into either version. Of course, it remains to be seen just how generous the game will be with its currency, but I imagine players can expect to save for around two or three months before they’re able to guarantee pity on an event banner.
In all that excitement, it’s just occurred to me that I’ve yet to even talk about what the game’s about. Zenless Zone Zero puts you in the shoes of Phaethon, a well-known pair of hacker siblings, and you can choose to play as either Belle or Wise, AKA a female or male character. Working together with fellow Agent Nicole, Belle and Wise soon find themselves faced with a virtual threat who’s threatening to expose and take them down.
Image Source: Hoyoverse via Twinfinite
You’re then forced to work with Nicole and several other Agents to explore the virtual world and find out who’s coming after you. Along the way, you’ll take on various other Commissions and meet other side characters with their own fun stories to tell.
Story-wise, I’ll be the first to admit that Zenless Zone Zero doesn’t seem particularly inspired. And perhaps I’m biased, but it almost feels like the game’s vibe and atmosphere alone are enough to keep me playing. The mesh of high-tech hacking and the retro aesthetic is incredibly appealing; the juxtaposition between diving into a VR world and having it be depicted with analogue, old-timey television screens is ingenious. The fact that Belle and Wise run a video store with actual video tapes as a front for their hacking business is wonderful.
And New Eridu itself is also beautifully retro, with noodle stores on the side of the street, scratch cards, rundown convenience stores… It all just feels wonderfully nostalgic, with a dash of the futuristic on the side. There aren’t quite enough urban fantasy RPGs on the market, and I suppose Hoyoverse is giving me something I never knew I wanted until I got it. Especially one that doesn’t overwhelm you with giant open-worlds to explore, and is instead focused on the smaller details that it knows you’ll get invested in.
I came away from the closed beta test feeling excited and genuinely hyped for Zenless Zone Zero to finally release next year. It’s a game that I haven’t been away to pull myself away from, and when I did, I found myself thinking about it constantly, and that’s a rare feeling to find in video games these days.
About the author
Zhiqing Wan
Zhiqing is the Reviews Editor for Twinfinite, and a History graduate from Singapore. She’s been in the games media industry for nine years, trawling through showfloors, conferences, and spending a ridiculous amount of time making in-depth spreadsheets for min-max-y RPGs. When she’s not singing the praises of Amazon’s Kindle as the greatest technological invention of the past two decades, you can probably find her in a FromSoft rabbit hole.
I hollered while I was watching the Genshin Impact update stream. Aside from giving players free stuff (arguably the least exciting part of being a Genshin enjoyer) during China’s biggest holiday, the developers teased something that I suspected all along: The hyper-secretive Alhaitham could be the most interesting character of the current Sumeru storyline. To everyone who believed the lore that said Alhaitham was just some dude: Did you also believe that the immortal Zhongli was just some dude? Come on, now.
First, a bit of context. Within the current storyline, Genshin players have occasionally encountered Alhaitham, an unassuming scribe who presents himself as an ordinary, boring government employee. Here’s how the update stream amusingly blew the lid off of that idea: One of Genshin’s writers was introducing Alhaitham as a secretary who had helped players save an imperiled goddess from his own government. HoYoverse’s CEO Da Wei asked: “This is the ‘feeble scholar’ Alhaitham?” playfully referencing the way the bureaucrat had described himself in front of the protagonist. The writer started laughing on the spot.
A significant portion of the Genshin fandom believed that Alhaitham was truly just some guy trying to live his life, hence the origin of the feeble scholar joke. Psych. Although he rejected the highest government position in the country, his own peers will force him to become their leader in the near future. So we’ll be seeing a lot more of this feeble scholar trying to pull his country together during the next major story patch.
Some fans are devastated at the possibility that Alhaitham might be important. It’s okay. You’ll get through this somehow. Personally, I think HoYoverse already gave us plenty of hints. When he talked about the plight of scholars who were “disappeared” for developing mental illnesses, he was clearly hiding exactly how much he knew about their plight. I’m starting to suspect that he’s keeping a low profile because of something that happened in his past.
My Alhaitham thirst aside, here are the other highlights from the stream:
A new desert area
The Desert of Hadramaveth will continue the lore-heavy storyline of the mercenary Jeht and her mechanical companion. The academics of Sumeru believed that the ancient king of the Eremites (a marginalized racial group) was an awful tyrant. This narrative has been used as justification to marginalize the Eremites. Previous quests have suggested that the truth is more complicated, and players will be able to find out more in the near future. Since Genshin has a tendency to lock areas behind certain quests, you should finish “Golden Slumber” and the new “The Dirge of Bilqis” before trying to explore Hadramaveth.
The Lantern Rite festival
Genshin has a Chinese New Year-inspired event every year, and it’s coming in the next patch, bringing with it new minigames that you can play. Completing them will award you premium currency and other useful items. If you finish enough minigames, you’ll also be able to redeem one free 4-star character. Last year, I wrote up a useful guide on which character to pick. The new healer Yaoyao is included in 2023’s lineup.
The wind god Venti will be visiting the China-inspired region for the festival, which has sent shippers into a frenzy about their favorites meeting onscreen for the first time. Congratulations, Xiaoven shippers. Your time has finally come after almost three years of waiting.
New characters
MY BOY ALHAITHAM IS FINALLY HERE. I know that there’s a high chance that you’ve seen the leaks. But HoYoverse still has a couple of weeks to tweak his kit, so remember that he might not be as powerful or weak as leaks may suggest. That’s not accounting for the possibility of mistranslations (Raiden Shogun) or changes (Zhongli, Yae Miko). YouTubers are already panicking over leaks about an alleged Alhaitham nerf that would hurt his damage potential.
But those are invisible damage multipliers. It’s much harder for the developers to change things that they’ve already revealed in the livestream. So far, it seems like Alhaitham is intended to be either a DPS or a sub-DPS character. His ability allows him to gain Dendro application, and Dendro is a reaction element. So his kit facilitates keeping him on-field while being supported by off-field characters such as Raiden Shogun or Kokomi.
Yaoyao is a support character who should be easier to obtain due to her lower gacha rarity. She will be our first ever Dendro healer, which gives her a niche that no other character has at present. But before you dump all your primogems into her banner, I’d suggest you wait. You can get a free copy of her by playing the Lantern Rite event. So if you want her, I suggest grinding for her instead of going all-in on the gacha.
Alhaitham and Yaoyao will be available during the first half of the patch. Xiao will also have his rerun during this period. You’ll be able to pull for Hu Tao and Yelan during the second half. So be sure to plan carefully, or you might find yourself spending more than you intended.
Ayaka and Lisa are getting new skins
Okay, don’t get too excited. Though I think it’s interesting that they’ve used a European design for Ayaka’s skin, I don’t feel like it’s an improvement over her default outfit. Her original clothes balanced her light-colored design with deep blue hues. This spring-hued dress seems blinding in comparison.
Lisa’s outfit is based on her academy days, and it’s… fine, I guess? Lisa is one of the most underwhelming characters in the game, and I gave up on raising her levels long ago. This plain school uniform doesn’t compel me to use her any more often. I feel like this one was a miss. Stop trying to make Lisa happen, HoYoverse. She’s not going to happen without a significant buff.
Genshin Impact’s update will be available starting from January 18.
